LexisNexis — Tax Center

LexisNexis is one of the world’s largest electronic content providers
to accounting, legal and government professionals, offering more than five billion
searchable documents from more than 40,000 legal, news and business sources.
Among the company’s services is the LexisNexis Tax Center, which is offered
in versions for Law Firms and for Corporate & Professional (C&P) users.
This review focuses on the C&P system, which provides features and capabilities
more specific to the needs of tax practitioners. Tax Center is similar for Corporate
and Legal markets; the difference is in some content access due to licensing
restrictions, but there are no functionality differences) The tax research system
is web-based and includes primary source material such as cases, codes, regulation
and tax news, along with analysis, insight, commentary and guidance, with the
ability to search across all areas simultaneously.

The basic menu for Tax Center starts at $60 per two users per month ($720 annually),
but overall pricing is contingent upon content subscriptions selected by users
and the number of seats. Pricing is also dependent on discounts (the $60 price
is before any discounts that may be given to customers.) Tax Center is also
available through the Taxation Area of Law tab or Transactional Advisor tab
on www.lexis.com.

EASE-OF-USE/SEARCH ROUTINE - 4.5 Stars
Tax Center’s browser interface opens to the Federal Research tab unless
the user has set his preferences to default to another tab including a customizable
My Tax Center homepage, which is among the primary feature/program area tabs
housed at the top of the screen. These also include tabs for Research (which
includes Federal, State and International tax) Get a Document, access to Shepard’s
Citations Service, Tax News and Tax Forms. Most of the system’s advanced
document retrieval features are available from the Research tab, which provides
a multi-tabbed screen that houses a search field at the top with options for
using terms and connectors or natural language queries, plus the ability to
restrict re-turned documents by date. This Research screen provides additional
tabs for selecting Federal, State, International, Accounting & SEC, Tax
Topics or all sources on the A to Z Source List.

While on the primary Research screen and with the sub tab for Federal selected,
users can select specific areas of federal taxation to search, or can drill
down to primary source documents, opinion, analysis and guidance. Users can
select full areas or combine multiple documents from different areas in their
searches. Alternatively, users can click on one of the sources and view the
entire document in table of contents format. Within a specific document, users
still have full search capabilities, in addition to search and filter functions
specific to the document. An additional selection of tabs is available further
down the Research screen for the selection of Analytical Sources, including
options for General, Business Entity, Estate/Gift/Trust, Exempt Orgs., Pensions
& Benefits, IRS Practice & Procedures, and Specialized Tax Planning.

When viewing returned documents in Tax Center’s Tax Advisor library,
the system provides a left-hand expandable navigation menu for moving between
the source documents with returned hits, while the main work area displays a
selected document and offers the ability to scroll between documents. Tax Advisor
includes easy, one-click access to code-specific materials including proposed,
final and temporary regulations, code-specific explanations, treatises and law
reviews, legislative history, recent cases and news. Additional text-based links
offer the ability to print, download, e-mail or view a text-only version of
the document. With the text of the returned documents, citations and other sources
are hyperlinked, providing instant access to related materials.

CONTENT - 5 Stars
Tax Center houses an extensive collection of primary materials and analysis
from LexisNexis and from leading information providers to the tax and accounting
profession, such as Kleinrock, BNA and CCH. These include the Tax Advisor Federal
Code and Tax Advisor Federal Topical from LexisNexis, which offer a combination
of content and research-specific functionality. Tax Advisor Federal Code was
described in the previous section, while Tax Advisor Federal Topical is essentially
a comprehensive tax encyclopedia with nearly 40 volumes and 500 chapters of
expert analysis on all major areas of federal tax law, supported by thousands
of practical tips and examples. Also available through Tax Center is the Standard
Federal Tax Reporter and Tax Research Consultant from CCH, Kleinrock’s
TaxExpert Analysis & Explanation, and expert guidance and opinion from BNA,
Tax Analysts, Matthew Bender, Wiley, Aspen and Shepard’s Citations Service.

These are in addition to a comprehensive library of federal, state and local
regulations, tax code, pending legislation, court cases, penalties, treaties,
GAAP and IFRS accounting standards, and FASB/GASB content. A broad selection
of state resources is also available. For tax and legislation news that may
affect clients, Tax Center offers Federal Tax Day, Daily Tax Report and Tax
Notes Today, as well as articles and briefs from sources such as Kiplinger’s
Tax Letter, the New York Times and others.

CUSTOMIZATION - 5 Stars
The primary user interface includes the customizable My Tax Center screen, which
can be set up by users to provide access to frequently used materials and documents.
The system saves search histories, which allows professionals to re-use queries,
while Tax Center’s Alerts feature can be set to automatically perform
searches across news or selected libraries at predetermined schedules, helping
keep users notified of potential items of interest.

INTEGRATION/OUTPUT - 4 Stars
Tax Center does not directly integrate with professional tax compliance packages,
but does offer the ability to save returned documents into multiple formats,
including Word, PDF and WordPerfect. Users can also e-mail documents from within
the system.

SUPPORT - 4.5 Stars
In addition to a traditional Help function, the LexisNexis Tax Center offers
content-specific guidance, including a Show Me feature for many search processes.
The LexisNexis support website provides additional self-help and assistance
options, such as FAQs and training options. In addition, users can access 24/7
live and web-based technical support, which is included in the product pricing.